Leni Sinclair arrived in Detroit from East Germany in 1959 with only a suitcase and a Zeiss Ikon 35mm camera. She was drawn to Detroit at a moment when the city’s cultural and activist voice was coming into focus, and jumped right in. She recorded creativity around her, from cultural and political events of the time to daily life and street people, police interactions, and musical performances of all kinds.  

Leni is widely known for her images of Detroit's political underground in the 1960s and '70s, and her musical ties to the MC5 and Detroit's early punk scene. She was known as the “The girl with the camera,” as she traveled from one performance to another throughout Metro Detroit. Yet, her first book was The Detroit Jazz Who's Who in 1984, created in partnership with Herb Boyd. She has always been a big jazz fan in a very active jazz town. 

Detroit embraced jazz from its beginning. Local band leader Fred S. Stone published the first song using the word "ragtime" in its title in 1898. Since then Detroit musicians have played and explored jazz, all over the world, in all its forms. LENI: Looking Through the Lens captures the vanguard sound of jazz and the scene in our region in a selection of her images featuring jazz musicians and performances.